The linkage between point of care (POC) rapid testing and laboratory-based testing has typically been addressed through preservation of samples to support culture-based laboratory testing methods. Currently, samples collected at the POC site are either processed and used directly in a rapid test (the portion of the processed sample not used in the rapid test being discarded); or diluted in liquid transport media to enable transfer for laboratory-based testing such as rapid immunoassay, culture and/or polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Specimens that generate negative results from a POC test are often reflex tested—the negative result is confirmed by lab-based testing methods such as PCR. In addition, specimens that generate positive POC test results are frequently tested for additional characterizations such as subtyping or other epidemiologic information.
Referring to FIG. 1, at physician office POC sites (and other non-laboratory sites where patients are seen or samples for rapid testing are collected), swab specimens 100 are used almost exclusively to deliver sample into solution 110 for the rapid test 120. Processing and testing the sample in the physician's office and other non-laboratory sample collection sites does not contemplate a means for enabling lab-based testing such as confirmatory and/or reflex testing or other tests the require lab-based analysis. With the current methods, a physician (or other administrator of a POC rapid test) cannot perform both a POC rapid test and a lab-based test using the sample collected at the site (e.g. the physician's office). Therefore, an opportunity to perform lab-based testing on such samples is lost. Swab samples 130 collected at POC sites within a hospital or clinic are almost exclusively placed within a volume of liquid transport media 140 for transfer to the testing laboratory for remote testing. The diluted samples 150 may be further processed by adding them to a solution 160 for a rapid test 170. However, this method often results in a POC sample diluted 5 to 10-fold, or more, which can diminish performance of the rapid test due to sample dilution effects.
Collection and transport of a second swab at the POC site could be used to address the need to perform laboratory-based testing, although this is clearly not the standard of practice and doubles the number of samples to be taken. In addition, although collected from the same patient, variations in collection methods, organism load, etc. could lead to erroneous results when comparing the test results between two independently collected swab specimens. Accordingly, a system and method that addresses these problems is desired.